18 November 2022
Manu Prakash
Department of Bioengineering
Stanford University
My lab uses interdisciplinary approaches including theory and experiments to understand how computation is embodied in biological matter. Examples include cognition in single cell protists and morphological computing in animals with no neurons and origins of complex behavior in multi-cellular systems. Using examples from non-model organisms – I will share how cytoskeletal geometry encodes search behavior in single cells and how a new class of active matter, "ciliary flocking", enables local and global search in animals with no neurons or muscles. I will also share some new instruments we have developed to enable "virtual reality arena" via scale free vertical tracking microscopy for single cells and larvae, eenabling never before seen behavior of single cells over multiple spatial and temporal scales, including single cells traveling hundreds of meters in a water column. Much of our work frames cellular and organismic biology problems in context of the rich environment life thrives within.